The Swansong of the Mandarins : Humboldt’s Idea of the University in Early Post-War Germany
In the wake of the Second World War, Germany saw an intensive debate about the idea of the university and its future role in society. All were agreed that the country’s universities had to be revitalized after the ravages of Nazism, but the question was what weight should be given to the classical German heritage, and the Humboldtian tradition in particular. The mandarins, the older humanist schol
